City head into deadline day with an outside chance of landing £50million-rated Radamel Falcao.

But any deal for the Monaco strike ace would depend on the Blues reaching an agreement with Valencia for Alvaro Negredo.

That possibility took a step nearer last night when it appeared that Negredo’s representatives had reached an agreement with the newly-rich Spanish club.

But the move, and any City deal with Falcao, still relies on City and Valencia reaching an agreement – although a season-long loan with a £20m move at the end of it has already been mooted.

The Blues were interested in Falcao last summer, but he moved to Monaco for £48m and on £200,000 a week – and the Blues picked up Negredo and Stevan Jovetic for roughly the same amount of money.

It appeared on Saturday that City had been trumped by Real Madrid – especially when Falcao himself tweeted a message that indicated he was heading for the Bernabeu.

But Falcao hastily deleted that tweet and, on a day of intrigue and surprise, City kept open lines of communication with Falcao’s agent Jorge Mendes, who has been engineering a move for the star.

Mendes has been in touch with Arsenal and Juventus, as well as City and Real Madrid, and United’s name was thrown into the mix last night.

Falcao himself deepened the intrigue, as he tweeted “HalaMadrid Dream Come True” before quickly deleting the post and then claiming it was a fake when several media sources published screen grabs of the Tweet.

That was exposed by the Twitter tracking website Favstar, despite its deletion.

But Madrid then look to have set up a loan deal for United striker Javier Hernandez and City were again in the running.

Director of football Txiki Begiristain made it plain to Mendes that any bid would be dependent on the departure of Negredo, and limited by the constraints of City transfer spending cap, imposed by Uefa as part of the financial fair play punishment.

City like Falcao, who wants to leave the French club just a year after joining them for £48m from Atletico Madrid.

He has returned to fitness after a knee injury in January ended his season and ruled him out of the World Cup.

The Blues have spent £50m in this window, but have recouped £25m from the sales of Javi Garcia and Jack Rodwell.

Valencia, as revealed by M.E.N. Sport two weeks, made Negredo their top target this summer, despite the fact that ‘The Beast’ is recovering from surgery to a foot fracture.

Rumours in Spain initially suggested Real Madrid were looking at Negredo as a cheaper alternative to Falcao.